1. Field
The present application relates to an electronic camera that performs image processing on image data obtained by shooting.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in an electronic camera such as a digital camera, there are provided a continuous shooting mode in which a plurality of still images is obtained continuously based on a frame rate set in advance, a moving image mode in which a moving image is obtained, etc., in addition to a shooting mode in which one still image is obtained. In a digital camera comprising such a continuous shooting mode and a moving image mode, image data is output at regular intervals from an imaging element, and thus, if processing capacity relating to image processing or coding processing for output image data is low, processing time required for the processing increases and as a result, processing on image data not subjected to processing yet is performed even after shooting has been completed. Because of this, it is devised that two image processing units that perform image processing are arranged in parallel and image processing on image data is performed while distributing image data output from the imaging element to the image processing units, respectively (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H5-227519). Because of this, the image processing capacity is improved and the processing time required for image processing is reduced.
In contrast, a large amount of electric power is consumed in the image processing for obtained image data, and thus, if image processing is performed by using the above-described two image processing units, more electric power is consumed. Furthermore, the provision of two image processing units is effective for image processing at the time of continuous shooting and movie shooting, but at the time of shooting of a still image, image processing can be performed by one of the image processing units and the other image processing unit does not perform any image processing, and thus, electric power is wasted.